Belgium police continue anti-terror operation

A Belgian anti-terror operation linked to the November Paris attacks is continuing, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said Wednesday a day after a shootout in which one assailant was killed and four officers wounded. 

A Belgian soldier patrols in Brussels REUTERS/Yves Herman

"Police operations are continuing," Michel said without confirming press reports that police were hunting for two fugitives.

"The investigation continues and the danger remains," he said, adding that operations had continued throughout the night.

Michel however did not say whether authorities would put Brussels on the highest terror alert as they did two weeks after the Paris attacks.

"It's not because there is a search that there is necessarily an effect on the threat level," he told the broadcaster.

The mayor of the southern Brussels suburb of Forest, Marc-Jean Ghyssels, told RTBF radio that all schools and nurseries in his jurisdiction were open on Wednesday and that life was back to normal.

"There wasn't a direct threat to the public, it's a search that turned badly," he said.

Access to the road where the exchange of fire occurred Tuesday was also reopened to the public.